


Till Death Do Us Part

by wingardiumleviosaaa



Series: Of love, lies and loss [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Minor Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, POV Pansy Parkinson, Past Pansy Parkinson/Harry Potter, Slight Canon-Divergence, The One Who Got Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-18
Updated: 2015-10-18
Packaged: 2018-04-26 23:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5025607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingardiumleviosaaa/pseuds/wingardiumleviosaaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pansy Parkinson had never considered herself to be anyone important. She was not exceptionally pretty or smart, she was not a pleasant girl in the slightest and her only achievements in life so far had been graduating and marriage. Still there was one thing that made her glow, one secret that made her feel like she was worth anything at all, even if she had been the one to ruin it. A person, unthinkable as it might have seemed, who made her life light and breezy even when no one else could ever know. Even if the light had long since faded. </p><p>Or the one where Pansy watches Harry get married to another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Till Death Do Us Part

**Author's Note:**

> With my addiction to unusual pairings comes this one-shot about the snake and the lion, and how they were never meant to be.
> 
> Please leave me any comments or feedback because I truly enjoy those!

_Pansy Parkinson had never considered herself to be anyone important_. She was not exceptionally pretty or smart, she was not a pleasant girl in the slightest and her only achievements in life so far had been graduating and marriage.

Still there was one thing that made her glow, one secret that made her feel like she was worth anything at all, even if she had been the one to ruin it. A person, unthinkable as it might have seemed, who made her life light and breezy even when no one else could ever know. Even if the light had long since faded.

Shadows encased around her as she watched, sleek black hair falling over her eyes to cover up her face. He would not be able to see her through the crowd from where he was standing, and Pansy thought it would be for the best. No matter what she thought of the person he had chosen to spend his life with, the former Slytherin was not about to ruin this for him. All in all, they had caused each other more than enough pain to last three lifetimes.

The music startled her out of her thoughts, chest heaving in slow, languid breaths as her dark eyes glued to the woman in white. The woman she despised for having everything that could have been hers, if only life had turned out differently. There were hushed whispers of awe and admiration as the bride strode down the aisle, glittering in her pearly white dress - though Pansy bitterly thought there still was nothing quite so special about the woman in question - and a tiara engulfed in a wave of a thick, ginger bush of hair. All eyes were set upon her, noting the bright smile on her face and the way she glowed on what must have been the happiest day of her life. But the brooding Slytherin in the back had her focus elsewhere, looking at the set of emerald eyes that belonged to the groom. Her heart sank when she saw the sparkle had once belonged to her. It were those eyes that had once been looking at her with a fevor and passion, determined to make her smile. Determined to make her happy. Now the privilege belonged to another, and it was real. Painfully so.

Never before had Pansy hated someone as fiercely as in the moment Ginny Weasley joined Harry Potter down the aisle.

***

By her fifth year, Pansy thought she had everything under control. She liked it that way, the way she could command peple around without a single word. That she was overcompensating was a fact, but not one anyone cared to see. After all she was _only_ Pansy Parkinson, the semi-intelligent, semi-attractive friend of Draco Malfoy who had a mean streak and seemed to speak the language of sarcasm only. Continuously underestimated, but the dark-haired Slytherin did nothing to change the way people viewed her. In fact, she preferred it that way. Less expectations, less disappointments.

Because there were plenty of expectations she had to fulfill when it came to the homefront. How much time did it take for one to get accustomed to the icy glare of disapproval? She had not counted it on her fingers, but Pansy knew along the way it had only been resentment that took place of the shame she should have felt. _I have tried everything to be a good daughter, why are you never satisfied!_ her thoughts were furious during any form of reprimand, and the longer it continued, the more numb she got. The fifth year had wanted to do something stupid, something reckless. Something _scandalous_.

And that was exactly what she had gotten.

 **"Tell me, Golden Boy, how does it feel to always have to do the right thing?"** Her voice was a drawl as she observed him, glittering dark eyes that followed his every move. A smirk formed on crimson lips as the boy startled, widening as she saw him jump in the air a bit, a letter slipping between his fingers to slowly cascade to the floor. Nothing in her mind knew why she had decided to play this game, especially with this guy. His green eyes were glaring at her, defensive and on guard as she sank to her knees, so slow she knew he could not help but glide his eyes over her figure.

 **"What do you want, Parkinson?"** A tut fell over her lips as he sneered the words in her direction, unphased by his hostile demeanour. You had to do a lot more to scare Pansy Parkinson away. **"Do you always answer a question with a question, Potter? How rude."** The letter was important, judging by the way his muscles tensed the moment her fingers wrapped around the envelope, and thus the girl with the raven hair held onto it a little longer.

 **"Maybe it is because I have zero intention of talking to a bloody snake like you!"** He tried to make her angry, the way she was wriggling her way underneath his skin, but Potty often forgot that Slytherins were way better at controlling their tempers than those hot-headed Gryffindors. They did not fight head on. By then the Gryffindor had snatched the letter from her slender fingers, feverishly trying to tie it to his owl's leg. Red nails traced delicate figures up and down his tense arm as Pansy moved in, almost like a predator, behind him. She could feel the gentle shudders of his body underneath her fingers, and there was that smirk again, the one most people hated. **"Alright then, Potty. I'll leave you to yourself then.** " The Slytherin purred in his ear, although she remained by his side for a little longer before she backed away, her feet carrying her out of the Owlery.

_Not that she got very far._

The owls hooted in a cacophony of disgruntled annoyance over being disturbed as they witnessed the one thing no one would have ever expected to see. How the Boy-Who-Lived pulled the Slytherin Princess back and shoved her into a wall, lips smacked together in a flurry of frustrated adolescent emotions.

***

Pansy had never meant for things to go the way they had. In a surge of impulsive stupidity, she had decided that the best way to feel any kind of freedom, away from the life that was being laid out to her, would be by going for the one person who fit in that frame the least of all. And she had been victorious, as Harry kissed her the way she knew he had never been kissed before. Not by girls like Cho Chang anyways.

It was supposed to be a one time thing neither ever spoke of again, but every time Harry came back, she had been unable to tell him no. _The dance continued_.

Her mind was playing cruel tricks with her, Pansy decided as it forced the memories of her moments with the Chosen One to the front seat. Today was his wedding to another woman, and here she was, thinking about the times she had felt his lips against her own, claiming her as his own, holding on tight in ways no one had ever tried to make her feel. The tugs on her clothes that fell on the floor, like he was shedding layer after layer of her defenses until there was nothing left but Pure Pansy, the girl she kept so skillfully hidden.

Harry Potter had been the first boy who truly noticed her. _See_ her, beyond what people expected to see. Those emerald green eyes that pierced and poked through her sarcasm and vanity, who noticed the young girl in the golden cage. We won't tell anybody. Pansy had told him so many times, each time he ensnared her further, reeled her in beyond what she had deemed possible. But Pansy was not only in love, she was also weak, afraid. She was the Princess of Slytherin, and if she ever started dating Harry Potter in the open, her parents would know before she could blink. And it was a known fact that Parkinsons cracked under peer pressure.

 _He'll never have that problem with Ginger_. The thought was bitter and vindictive, but watching how her Gryffindor smiled at the Weasley girl the way he had always smiled at her, was something that twisted her heart in ways that she could not even explain.

Perhaps that was the reason why she was here. To punish herself for her actions, by displaying that what she had lost.

***

The school was in shambles. Chaos rose from every corner as people sprinted up and down the corridors, all trying to do their part before it even started. Pansy had looked around with disdain at the eagerness in which people were scurrying around to get themselves killed, striding down the stairs in a motion that was so calm and elegant it clashed with her surroundings in the strangest way.

**"It's Harry! Harry Potter is back!"**

It were those words that finally woke her up, resonating words inside her ears even though her face remained the vision of stoic perfection, masking the excitement she truly felt. And then when finally the mop of unruly dark hair and the famous scar came into vision, she knew it was true. And for a moment Pansy could not breathe under his stare.

 _An entire year_ , that's how long they had been fooling each other that maybe one day, they could work things out. That their environment would be less prejudiced and the enormous gap between their worlds would somehow be smaller. Manageable. An entire year of kisses in the dark, hidden conversations and tucked away feelings that were never thoroughly expressed in words. And then when destiny caught up with them, and Harry Potter had to once again save the world from the side that most of Pansy's friends ahd sworn allegiance to. And now here they were, almost a year after their silent goodbye in which the necessary words had stayed captive in their throats.

A year in which Pansy had tried to regain some normalcy in her life, as if the Boy-Who-Lived had never made any impact on it.

Because her nose had been pressed on the fact that they could never be together in the way she knew deep down she wanted to. Yet the pull was undeniable, inevitable even as she strode down the stairs towards him. Closer and closer, her face masked with cold indifference, though her eyes spoke of so much more. It was nothing more than a subtle brush of her hand against his that would make him follow, down memory lane to where it all began. There was no sound but the screeching of owls once again as Harry Potter caught up with her. There was no time to speak, but he kissed her with such fervor that it seemed like the clocks had frozen and they had all the time in the world. It was nothing more than fingers in her hair, hands underneath her robes, a steady rhythm in which they moved with each other. In sync without a single thought about it. Too soon the moment passed, as ragged breathing faded down as it steadied into its normal rhythm. She had missed him, even though it would never be something she'd admit out loud.

 **"Come with me. I can protect you, Pansy."** Harry was talking without truly looking at her, shrugging his clothes back on. He seemed in a hurry, but she knew better. She knew he did not have enough time. But it also was not as simple as he expressed his words, as they both knew the magic of their love came with the secrecy. Without the weight of the world. **"You know I can't, Harry."** The words were spoken with reluctance, part of her wanting to be selfish, an unmistaken _desire_ to be the girl she knew he needed right now. However, Pansy knew better.

She knew that girl was not her.

And then he was looking at her, desperately trying to find a way to make her change her mind, when there was not any. Pansy was set in her ways, one of her many downfalls. She needed approval of her peers, she had to swim with the stream instead of against it. It was instinct, routine. It was safe, even when it did not make her happy. She saw he realized that. And Harry Potter still had very many battles to win that were more important than her, even when right now it did not seem that way. So he just kissed her again, harder now, time pressing down on them like the swinging axe of a guillotine. It was time to cut each other loose.

 **"Good luck,"** was all she whispered as his figure retreated from her again, ready to face his final fight. So many things were still unsaid, but it did not matter. It did not change the way things remained.

***

And so Pansy had left Harry Potter behind, even when she had never truly forgotten him. She thought of him on the day she got married to a man from a respectable pureblood family, chosen by her dear mother. She had gazed at her reflection in the mirror, and wondered whether things would have been different if only she had chosen for herself that fateful day she left him behind. Again he stirred inside her mind when she had gotten pregnant with her first child, and flashes of young babies with emerald green eyes had danced in front of her eyes.

Pansy wondered whether Ginny Weasley knew just how lucky she was to be able to share all the things with him that she could have had.

It was a feeling of bitter resentment as she watched the woman spout out her vows to a man that was never supposed to be hers. Her resolve softened slightly though, as she watched Harry pronounce his love for his redheaded wife-to-be, and she saw those eyes sparkle while he spoke. Knowing how that meant he was happy. And was that not the most important thing?

Bells sounded as Harry Potter kissed his bride, chiming a happy tune that did not reach her insides. Pansy dug her hands inside the pockets of her coat, getting ready to retreat and make her leave. It was then, all of a sudden, that she was struck by a gaze of confusion and soft pain that still resonated from the good old days. Harry. They silently spoke through their intense gazes, saying all the words she knew they once should have said, but now never would.

_I love you._

I'll miss you.

_I'm glad you're happy._

Good luck.

It was broken when Ginny pulled her husband's attention away from her, and if he looked up again, Pansy would be gone. Her feet carried her down the steps of the church, the cold winter winds blowing in her pale face. Shaking fingers wiped a single tear away as it cascaded down her cheek, trying to mask the innate sadness that had somehow become part of her. The hope she had to leave behind on those steps with her heart.

Back to her loveless marriage, back to her miserable life in which her only joy were her children, with whom she remained locked up inside her home. At the very least, Pansy would make sure they'd be free to live their own lives and to love who they wanted. And the rest didn't matter. She gazed back one more time as the wedding party exited the church, and her gaze fell upon Harry for what would be the final time. This she knew for sure. Harry was happy, just like he deserved to be. It was finally time to let go. And thus the messsage conveyed was one that crushed her heart, but at the same time lit her up as she turned again and apparated away.

_Good bye._


End file.
